His voice was sincere, like that of an old man with little time left to live, treating everything with indifference, as though he had seen through all the ways of the human world.
But all of this was merely... a clumsy performance.
Although he truly had no intention of restarting the Absolute Ability User Evolution Plan, his pursuit of an Absolute Ability User would not stop. He had merely changed the subject of the Absolute Ability User experiment.
To... Misaka Mikoto.
Of course, he also knew that his clumsy performance probably could not deceive the orange-haired woman.
But sometimes... whether one was deceived or not was unimportant.
What truly mattered was having an attitude.
"Remember your words."
Aozaki Touko nodded slightly in satisfaction. Then she waved at the black-clad man holding the tablet. The man shut down the tablet, took a step back, and moved aside.
"...Teacher Touko, what exactly is going on?"
Confusion filled Misaka Mikoto's tea-brown eyes. The events had changed so quickly that she could barely understand them. Why... had Teacher Touko suddenly resolved everything?
That was the darkness deep within Academy City. If one accidentally fell into it... one would descend into an abyss of death.
Yet Teacher Touko had resolved the matter with ease.
It had gone so smoothly that it felt unreal. She had neither destroyed the research institute nor fought Accelerator, and there had been no fierce verbal confrontation. She had merely stayed at home... and solved the problem casually.
Just what kind of authority and means were needed to accomplish all this?
"As you can see, that's all there is to it." Aozaki Touko brought her index finger and thumb close together, leaving only the tiniest gap. "I merely told them... that if they didn't stop the Absolute Ability User Evolution Plan,